“I think people want something new and different,” Bachmann told a small group of reporters in Des Moines this morning. “They don’t want anything that reflects the status quo or the establishment. I think the Tea Party movement has made that very clear, that they don’t want Washington as usual.”

Bachmann is founder of the Tea Party Caucus in congress.

“I fight for what I believe in,” Bachmann said this morning during taping of an Iowa Public Television program. (Video posted online) “I’m committed and I have a record of being a fighter. That, I think, makes me unique, I think, above all of the candidates.”

Bachmann announced Thursday night that she is laying plans to launch her presidential candidacy next month with a speech in Waterloo, Iowa — where she lived as a child. If, as expected, she announces she’s running for president, she’ll face at least two former governors — Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty. She described them this morning as representing the “establishment” of the Republican Party.

“I am not an establishment candidate. I’ve set my own course. I’m a very independent person,” Bachmann said on the IPTV program. “I’ve taken on my own Republican leadership when I was in the Minnesota senate and I’ve taken on my own Republican leadership…in the congress of the United States…I am an equal-opportunity fighter because I am about the people.”

According to Bachmann, part of her appeal to voters is her optimism and her ability to “see the bright side” of life. And she appears to have few reservations about what she described as the “momentous decision” of entering the presidential race.

“Every decision that I make I pray about, as does my husband,” she said, “and I can tell, yes, I’ve had that calling and that tugging on my heart that this is the right thing to do.”